


Burning Day

by ravenna_c_tan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: HP: EWE, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-09
Updated: 2011-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-27 02:43:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenna_c_tan/pseuds/ravenna_c_tan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Changed by the long war and unhappy with his life, Harry starts a new one in Muggle London, but something is still missing. Unfulfilled, Harry looks for it in back alleys and back rooms, but it proves elusive. That all changes when someone he never thought he'd see again, Draco Malfoy, crosses his path by chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burning Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [son_of_darkness](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=son_of_darkness).



> Written for HD Summer Holidays 2007 as a gift for son_of_darkness. Thanks to clauclauclaudia for late night beta duties. More author's notes at the end.

Burning Day  
by Ravenna C. Tan

No one ever won an argument with me by saying "that's what Dumbledore would have wanted." In fact, it's a guaranteed way to lose my attention, my respect. Dumbledore, apparently, wouldn't have wanted me to turn out to be such a stubborn bastard about everything. I'm sure he didn't want the war to drag on for years as it did. I'm sure he didn't want me to suffer the way I did. What does it matter? When Hermione finally used the argument with me, when I told her I was thinking of leaving the Wizarding world, that was when I realized how far apart we'd grown. She'd never accepted the way the war changed me. I said goodbye to her and the Wizarding world that day.

Goodbye is a funny thing, though. I kept my wand, though I stopped using it. I stayed in London, though I never strayed near Diagon Alley or the Ministry. I changed my Galleons for pounds at a good exchange rate and settled in an old place in Shoreditch that the sales agent called the 'shabby chic' part of London. The city gave me the anonymity I had not known since going to Hogwarts. I could have bought something newer, but I just like old buildings, I guess. I certainly could never live in a place like my aunt and uncle's.

I got a job in a bookstore to keep myself busy during the day. Lord knows it wasn't for the money given what they paid, and don't get any ideas about me sipping coffee and discussing literature on the job. My main job was to unload shipments. Books are heavy and muscling them around for low wages was about as good job as a "strong young man with no formal education documents to speak of" like me could expect.

You don't want to know what I did to keep myself busy during the night.

Or at least, I am sure my co-workers didn't. They eventually decided that I had been some kind of soldier and had never really recovered from something horrible that had happened to me. Funny how perceptive people, even Muggles, can be, isn't it? Somehow the story grew over time that I had been a UN Peacekeeper in Somalia--which was funny since I had to sneak into the reference section to find out what continent Somalia was on. After a few months, the bright bookish young ladies who worked the cash register eventually stopped hitting on me. By the end of the year, the nosy bookish older ladies who supervised them also stopped trying to fix me up, though they never stopped trying to get me to eat more. Other than sometimes being late to work after a particularly rough night out, my work life was purely uneventful. Days slipped into weeks slipped into months. I was content with that.

Contentment is a strange state, though. It's not happiness, necessarily. It's more a state of wanting for nothing. If you can convince yourself you don't need anything else, you're content, right? Though I suppose if I needed nothing else, I wouldn't have been spending my nights as I did. It was not a time for introspection.

Nonetheless, my contentment was shattered one evening at the store, and when he did it, he wasn’t even aware of it.

It was getting near closing time and I was restocking a shelf on the second floor, when I heard voices. Up there the shelves are open; one can see through the books to the next aisle. I was on my knees and saw nothing, but as it was, _his voice was unmistakable._

"No, Charles. I said no. Not this time. I'm here to pick out a book for my aun--"

His voiced was muffled suddenly and the hairs rose on the back of my neck. There was a rustling sound, a jostling of the shelf.

The other man's voice then. "Oh, really. Is that why we're in the _sexuality_ section?" Followed by the definite sound of a zip being lowered.

Through the shelf I could see their legs, the bottoms of their overcoats.

And then a flash of blond as he was pushed to his knees. "Charles, I--" And then he was muffled again with a slight choking sound; I could vividly imagine by what.

I slipped away then, not wanting to be caught as a voyeur, not wanting to take the chance that he might see me and recognize me. And suddenly needing to relieve myself.

I locked myself in the bathroom and wanked so hard I left myself sore, every moment of it picturing myself pushing him to his knees, pressing my cock between his lips. Did he and this Charles do it often? It sounded like maybe they did. Did he swallow every drop so as not to leave a mess in a public place? I came imagining that my come went down his throat, that he sucked it hungrily and then licked me clean afterward.

I was content no more. There was something I wanted.

As soon as I could manage, I went back upstairs. The only evidence that they had been there was a few dozen books askew on the shelf. Otherwise, it could have all been a fantasy of mine. I could almost see, though, how the pushed-in books made the impression of his arse, where he had been pressed against them.

I had to find him. But how?

My reverie was interrupted by Mrs. Carmichael. "Harry? I'm locking up now."

"Oh, um, no problem," I answered. "I don't want to leave these out in the aisle. I'll just finish getting them onto the shelf and let myself out when I'm done."

She clucked her tongue. "You're the first one here in the morning to get the early shipments. You don't have to be the last to leave, too, you know."

"It's really all right," I assured her. "I'm not in a rush."

She left then and I did finish putting everything onto the shelf, but I didn't leave right away. Instead I went down to the office and saw that she'd stacked the credit card receipts on Mrs. Brundage's desk. I didn't know what they did with them--filed them away, I supposed.

I picked up the stack. Maybe this Charles bought something with a card and would be in the phone book. It was too much to hope that Draco Malfoy's name would appear. The receipts were in order. I flipped to the back, to the last customers.

The very last slip was signed in an elegant hand. Drayton Tonks.

***

That night I debated with myself. Was I really going to try to find Draco Malfoy, who was clearly living among Muggles like I was, track him down and then... what? Shove my cock down his throat? Something told me the fantasy held more appeal than the reality, but I found myself on the verge of checking the phone book more than once.

I hadn't been planning to go out that night, but it was a short while later that I grabbed my jacket and headed out. I knew places I could go to get the image of Malfoy sucking cock out of my head.

Or perhaps ingrained in it. It wasn't hard to find a skinny blond boy who would fall to his knees at the hint of a firm hand, who would worship at my feet for a few hard words, maybe a slap or two, if they were followed by praise. _God, you're beautiful, you love my cock, don't you? Yes, that's it, suck it, you're so good at that..._ Thankfully the one I found tonight called me "sir" instead of "Daddy." Sir I could do; Daddy was still a little weird to me. Maybe if I'd come of age as a Muggle, or known my own father, I'd understand it better.

Anyway, my excursion had the opposite of the intended effect. Malfoy, pushed to his knees in a public place, sucking for all he was worth... the image was only stronger after that. When I got home I surfed the net. "Drayton Tonks" had a townhouse in Kensington. Had he fled the Wizarding world, too, and been helped by his disowned aunt, whose husband Ted had been Muggleborn? I wrote the address on a Post-It note and went to bed.

In the morning I was once again the first one to the store, but for once I was not the last to leave. It was a Friday evening and easy enough to claim I had social plans. The summer sun was not set yet as I found myself sauntering past a well-kept building in Kensington, which faced a small, nice-looking park. I took a seat on a bench in the park then, wondering just what I planned to do with myself. I certainly wasn't going to just ring the bell. I sat there, thinking about what Malfoy's mouth would feel like as I breached his lips to bury my prick in the hot softness.

His voice startled me. I looked around to see him crossing the park toward me. He was walking fast, his hand to his ear, and his voice was vehement. It took me a moment to realize he was talking into a cell phone. The whole idea of Draco Malfoy with a cell phone just seemed so incongruous that my brain refused to believe it at first.

"Give me a break, Charles!" he was saying. "I said I'm busy tonight and that's the end of it. Yes, I'm on my way home now but... I'm not planning to stay in. I'm just changing my clothes and I'll be gone. And no, it's none of your business where I'm going."

I froze as he flopped down on the bench that was back to back with mine. I hung my head so my hair would hide my scar and my face. But he was too absorbed in his argument to even notice.

"This is not some 'silly game of hard to get.' I'm serious, Charles. Of course I want to see you, but I've just got plans, all right? And no, they're nothing big, but your insistence has aggravated me to the point that I'll never tell you now. Jealousy doesn’t become you, dear, in fact it's downright ugly."

There was a beep--Malfoy hung up and slid the phone into the breast pocket of his shirt, then buried his head in his hands.

We sat there like that, back to back, neither of us moving for what seemed like a very long time, my heart seeming to beat louder and louder the longer we sat.

Finally he stood with a loud, wet sniff. Had he been crying? He walked away, to the townhouse I'd looked at earlier, passing through the gate into a small brick courtyard, then up the steps and inside. I watched as the light came on in the front room, then a minute or so later one upstairs. I imagined it was his bedroom. The faint scent of his cologne hung in the humid, summery air around me, and I pictured him undressing. Laying the phone on a dressing table, next to the bottle of cologne, unbuttoning the fine dress shirt, sitting on the edge of the bed to remove his shoes...

How could I picture anything but a four-poster bed with curtains? I shook my head to clear it. If Draco lived someplace like this, he probably got his furniture at Ikea. I'd seen not a single trapping of the Wizarding world about him. He'd opened his door with a key, not a charm, and the lights looked like electric lights.

My reverie didn't last long, though. A man came quickly up the walk then, and let himself through the gate. Charles? All I'd seen of him yesterday was the edge of his overcoat and his shoes, and it was too warm today for a coat. But it certainly could be him.

He stopped in the courtyard and put his phone to his ear. Calling Draco? I decided I didn't much like this pushy bastard and crept up closer to see if I could hear what he was saying.

He rang off before I could hear anything, though, charging up the steps and then letting himself into the house with a key.

I drew my wand. It had been a long time since I'd used it, but it wasn't as if one forgets how. I'd learned many useful surveillance spells during the years of the war, and cast one that let me hear what was going on inside.

Draco's voice was as unmistakable as it had been the first two times I'd heard it recently. He'd grown a bit taller than when I last saw him, that terrible night on the Tower, but hadn't filled out the way I had. He'd looked willowy, nearly as underfed as he'd been Sixth Year, his hair as platinum as ever, nearly but not quite to his shoulders. I imagined it brushing the fabric of his shirt as he shook it, arguing.

"No, Charles, I said no, and I mean it."

"You don't know how crazy that makes me," came the answer. "It turns me on more than anything, you know. And I know that you do know."

There was a strangled sound of frustration. "So what are you saying? How can I get through to you? I'll.... I'll see you tomorrow, Charles, I promise, but right now..."

"You don't have anywhere to go."

"I do..."

"That was all a lie." Charles' voice was low. Perhaps he thought it sultry. I couldn't hear it as anything but menacing. "Ten days. It's ten days since I last reamed your arse."

"With a wine bottle!" Draco sounded horrified, affronted. "Not my idea of..."

"It'll be my cock this time."

"Charles... please..." What the charm couldn't tell me, of course, was whether that plaintive note in Draco's voice was desire or fear or what. I don't know which turned me on more, the idea of Draco Malfoy begging for a man's cock, or of him struggling, fighting...

Another fantasy that was likely hotter than the reality. It wasn't as if I really hoped to eavesdrop on Malfoy being raped. And this Charles wasn't going to rape him, anyway. It was a lovers' quarrel to be sure, and Malfoy was as slippery and manipulative as ever, I was certain. If he truly wanted to stop this man, he had the power to do it.

Perhaps just listening would no longer be enough. I changed charms, to one that made it seem as though I could look right through the walls. The figures inside appeared like ghosts to me, ethereal and not quite solid.

They were in the bedroom and I had a moment of vertigo when I saw there was, indeed, a four-poster bed in the center of the room. Malfoy was half-dressed, as if what I had imagined him doing had been what had really transpired. The sheer coincidence of it made the hairs on my arms stand up.

They stood up still further as Charles pulled Malfoy into a brutal kiss, bending him backward with one fist in his hair while his other hand dug in Malfoy's briefs.

"Stop it!" came the breathless cry when he released his mouth.

Charles merely pushed him back onto the high bed, legs dangling off the side. "Your cock isn't telling me to stop."

"Oh God..." Malfoy whimpered.

"If you really didn't love this, would you be so hard for me?" Charles went on, this time pulling Malfoy's briefs down to his knees and then pawing at the erection that was revealed.

I am ashamed to say my mouth watered.

And then it was difficult to make out exactly what was going on, but Charles pushed Malfoy's legs up, the briefs still around his knees... Malfoy gave a harsh cry. A minute or so later, the motion of fucking was clear. Charles was still fully clothed, his trousers open just enough to get his prick into Malfoy's arse.

"God, I love it when you're tight and fighting me," he growled as he rutted. "I've never needed anyone the way I need you. God, what a slut you are. I'm going to fuck you like this as long as I please, you know. And then when I'm ready for a change of pace, I'm going to make you come, so I can fuck you when you're all loose and relaxed, too."

"Charles, please..." Malfoy begged. I would be lying if I said I weren't ragingly hard myself just then. Nagging thoughts flitted through my head. In the part where I couldn't really see, had Charles lubed him up? Put on a condom? But surely all Malfoy had to do if he wanted to put a stop to it was Summon his wand. Maybe after Charles left he'd hit himself with a few healing spells. If there was one thing I had learned in my frequent excursions to the back alleys and dungeons of London, it was that love and sex and lust could be extremely complex, and consent could be difficult for an outsider to discern.

I reached a hand into my trousers, just to shuffle the uncomfortable arrangement of my anatomy in my jeans, but was rubbing myself against the heel of my palm before I knew it.

Once upon a time, I thought, I would have just thought this was wrong. Spying on someone? Especially my hated rival? To get my rocks off? But since Voldemort's demise, my life had been one gigantic grey area. In the Muggle world, it mattered less, I supposed, the larger questions of Right and Wrong.

Charles continued to say vile, arousing things. Malfoy continued to protest, the tenor of his cries changing from anger to desperation. Then he began to appeal not to Charles himself but to the universe at large.

"Help me! Somebody, please! Oh God, _help!_ " That final scream was cut off by Charles hand over his mouth and nose, and then it seemed he was suffocating, too.

I had seen plenty of breathplay, so that was nothing new. Plenty of couples whose favorite scenario was "consensual nonconsensuality," too. But I found my hand out of my pants and wrapped around my wand.

And then, quite suddenly, Charles cried out. The spell flickered wildly... no, that was flames flickering. The bed was on fire. Charles stumbled back, covering his eyes and coughing. Malfoy appeared to be... huddled in a ball, oblivious to the flames. Charles tried to reach for him, but the flames held him back, and he ran from the room.

The moment it became obvious that Charles intended to flee the house, rather than attempt to put out the fire, all my questions turned to dust. The grey was suddenly in sharp relief, black and white, and there was no doubt as to what I should do. My wand felt like a blade in my hand, cutting away cobwebs, as I flung one spell after another.

Their names came easily, as if I hadn't just spent a year with my wand in a drawer, never struggled through a Charms lesson trying to wrap my tongue around the words, never doubted...

When time began to move again at its normal speed, the fire was out, I was in the bedroom, and I had Malfoy in my lap as I checked his breathing. His eyes, startlingly grey this close, opened and looked into mine, confused and questioning.

But I spoke first. "Malfoy? Are you all right?"

Those eyes went wide with shock and recognition. "Potter?" He pulled free, my arms feeling oddly cold suddenly, but I was mindful of the way Charles had clutched and grabbed at him so I let him go.

His eyes were wild, but he regained his poise with blinding speed. He sat against the headboard, legs folded primly under him, tucking his briefs back in place, there under the tails of his button-down shirt. "I haven't been called that in a long time," he said, his head at a regal tilt, as if the scorch marks surrounding him were gold leaf and the smoke still drifting through the air incense. "Why are you here?"

A good question. A very good question. "You called for help." Which was true.

He narrowed his eyes at me. "What, and _Fate_ sent you to me?" I had forgotten how he had that way of spitting out words, like any word could be a hex from his lips. But his spine straightened suddenly and he looked away, as if he regretted saying that. He hugged his own elbows and the light of the lamps off his hair in the smoky air made it seem as if he glowed. "Get out and leave me alone, Potter."

"He might come back," I found myself saying.

He hissed through his teeth. "Yes, well. It does rather look like he left me for dead, doesn't it? One way to get rid of the evidence."

I frowned at that. "He was raping you, Draco."

His eyes bore into me at that. "We're on a first name basis now? And are you so sure of that?"

Draco Malfoy always had the ability to make me angry beyond all rational thought. I got to my feet, wand clenched in my fist. "I've seen plenty of complicated lovers' games, Malfoy. But if that's all it was, well, it's as you said. He wouldn't have left you in a house on fire."

His eyes watched me the way a cat watches a mouse. "Just so. And, what? You'll stay here to protect me?"

"Malfoy, listen, I figured if you wanted to stop that guy, you could've..."

He snorted. "Would you say some accidental fire counted as protecting myself?" He licked his lips as he regarded me with sudden suspicion in his eyes. "You've no idea, do you."

"No idea what?"

He shook his head. "I'll ask you one more time why you're here."

"It's just a coincidence," I tried.

"I was told no one from the Wizarding world would ever darken my door again."

Now my mouth hung open. Told? By whom? And I was hardly from the Wizarding world, not any more... "I-- I left the Wizarding world. More than a year ago. I work in a bookstore. You were there yesterday and I just thought maybe..." The incriminating part of that story began much earlier than my peeping on him tonight. I shut my mouth.

"You. Work in a bookstore." There was half a smile, half a sneer on his face.

"Yes. What's so funny about that?" He could ever make me defensive and testy. "I work weekdays on the loading dock receiving shipments. I don't need the money. It's just something to keep me busy. Keep my mind off things."

"Things," he repeated. "Like what?"

"None of your business," I answered, though I was thinking to myself, yeah, what things? I refused to think about the answers. "Look. I just thought, what a coincidence. That's Malfoy, I ought to go and look him up. I didn't know I'd be walking into an arson scene..."

He thought that over. "Well, Potter, I've no way to prove it, but either you've become much more adept at lying or you've retained the disgusting openness and honesty that made you such a prat as a teenager. Thanks ever so much for looking in on me, but..."

"Wait a second," I said, stepping forward, irked but determined if he wanted to get rid of me, I wouldn't go easily. "You've just been raped, your house was on fire, and he might come back."

Malfoy was looking at the charred edges of the bedcover, and for a moment I saw him go off into his own thoughts, his mask slipping just a little.

Just enough.

When he looked back at me he was all business. "And what do you propose to do if he does? Protect my virtue?"

I shook my head. "Look, do you have somewhere else you can go? You're not safe here."

He shook his head slowly, those grey eyes never leaving my face.

"Fine. Come to my place. We'll sort this in the morning with new security charms. Just pack some clothes for tomorrow and..." I realized he was staring at me, one cheek twitching as he tried to hide some emotion or another. "What? What's wrong?"

"Security charms," he repeated quietly, with a hint of venom.

"Yeah, c'mon, Malfoy, you were fine at Charms. They only have to keep Charles out, anyway, not the..." I trailed off as I realized he was still staring at me with the same expression. Now, as a teenager in the Wizarding world, lacking the indoctrination of the culture, I was forever finding out long after the fact things that every one around me knew all about. How to use Floo powder. That only the desperate took the Knight Bus. That portraits in the common room would gossip to portraits all over the castle about what you did.

I felt like this was one of those times. The look on Malfoy's face said it would be. I sighed. "Just tell me what I'm missing."

He gathered himself before speaking, just moving subtly but somehow I could picture him settling his robes. "It's not what you're missing, Potter. It's what I'm missing."

"You don't mean..."

But even as I was saying it, my brain was catching up to the horrible conclusion of what he must have meant. And when he said it, it sounded just as petty and ugly and bitter as I imagined the act to be.

" _They took my magic._ "

***

It wasn't until we were halfway back to Shoreditch that I realized he'd hardly spoken after that. He disappeared into the bathroom for a short while, emerged from another room fully dressed and carrying a small bag, and followed me the few blocks to where I'd parked my car. It was as if, having made that admission to me, he now acquiesced to my every suggestion.

Perhaps I stunned him to silence, so surprised was he that I didn't immediately pepper him with questions about who, and why, and how, and what he should have done. I had no doubt it was the Ministry, no doubt that someone felt they had done the right thing by sentencing him to life as a Muggle. Life in Azkaban commuted to the lesser sentence because of mitigating factors. Something like that.

I drove carefully, perhaps a tad slowly, to give myself time to think about what to do when we arrived, and enjoying sharing the close space in the sports car with him. Mad to think on it. He'd just been assaulted after all; how could I even be thinking what I was? But I was.

And what was he thinking? His face remained blank, his thoughts unreadable, for the length of the trip.

I noticed though, that his eyes widened as I drove into the private car park on the ground floor. The building was once a furniture maker's, built in 1890, then was a warehouse for a long time. I lived on the upper floors, and led him to the kitchen first, where I put on the kettle, and then to what was nominally the guest room, one more flight up, given that it was the area that had a bed in it other than mine. On the way up the stairs though, I thought sleeping in the library, which had no real door to speak of, on a pull-out couch, might not feel very safe to him.

So I continued up to the master bedroom, which did have a door that locked, entirely Muggle fashion, as I explained it to him. "Tonight's the first night I've gotten my wand out of my desk drawer in months and months. There's nothing charmed in the house so you should be safe."

I took some things to sleep in out of a drawer. "I'll sleep on the couch downstairs so you can have the bed."

He put his bag down at the foot of the bed and sighed. "I... never had a chance for dinner."

"Come down and have some tea when you're ready and I'll scare up something for us to eat."

"All right." He looked at me curiously, then decided, I guess, to take the opportunity I was giving him to be alone for a bit, and sat on the edge of the bed. He ran a hand over the coverlet, his hair falling over his face like a curtain as he looked down at it.

I went downstairs wondering how it could be that I found that image unbearably erotic. Draco Malfoy, his face hidden by his hair, sitting on my bed and feeling the texture of the bedcovers. Hadn't I just shoved my cock down a boy's throat last night? It twitched at the memory.

I was making eggs and toast when he appeared and took a seat at the table, watching me silently. I bent over him to put his food down on the table in front of him and damn if the scent of smoke that still clung to him didn't remind me of incense, too.

"So the flames were... accidental," I said, when I was partway through eating, as if we'd been discussing the topic all along.

"Yes," he said, adding salt to his eggs and cutting his toast into strips with his knife and then dipping the pieces into the yolk.

"Has that happened to you before?" I asked, wondering if he'd talk about it.

"I don't make being raped a regular habit, no," he sniffed, but without venom.

"I mean the..."

"I know what you mean." He sipped his tea and made me wait for an answer. "Not since I was a child. You know, didn't you ever have something magical happen to you before you went to Hogwarts? When you fell or something?"

I could recall now with some fondness that I'd once made the glass disappear on a snake's cage at the zoo. "Yeah. So is it like that?"

He shrugged. "My accidental magic as a child happened twice. Both times I set something on fire. But, I don't know."

I finally did have to ask the question that had been burning in the back of my mind. "How do they take your magic?" My voice came out more breathless than I'd expected.

He snorted. "They point a wand at you and say some words, Potter. Just like any other spell."

"That's not what I meant and you know..." I realized he was hiding a sly smile. Was he deflecting the subject with humor? Or did it just amuse him to take the piss out of me that way?

"Do you really care to know?" he asked, pushing his empty plate away and looking at me seriously. "Or have you left such matters so far behind that..."

"I am curious," I admitted, interrupting him, but I was anxious all of a sudden.

He shrugged. "I'm afraid there isn't much I can tell you. They wouldn't tell me anything at all. Presumably because they fear I might devise some way of reversing it."

"So..." I cleared the dishes to the sink, thinking aloud as I went. "Your magic isn't gone, exactly, it's still there...?"

"I didn't use a cigarette lighter to set the bed on fire, you know," he drawled.

My fevered brain remembered all too well, though, the way their bodies had rubbed together, and watching his lips say the words 'set the bed on fire' had a predictable effect on me. I turned to the sink to rinse the plates.

"I seem to have kept some intuition, too," he went on. "I can sense certain things."

"Oh, that's interesting," I blathered as I rinsed the silverware.

"Yes. I can tell with a certainty how much someone wants me."

That stopped me cold. I shut off the water but stayed with my back to him. "It isn't... I didn't bring you here... there's a lock on the bedroom door," I sputtered.

Silence. I was afraid to see what expression would be on his face so I didn't turn around. The mad part of my brain--the part that was between my legs, I mean--was telling me how much he needed love and comfort. How much he needed someone with strength of character and virtue.

Then I remembered I'd rather left strength of character behind when I gave up on the Wizarding world. And virtue hadn't been seen for a long time.

After he falls asleep, I told myself, I'll slip out, go back to that place... and not be satisfied with just a whiny twink's blowjob. It would be a rare indulgence for me, but I knew if I truly wanted to I could find a hole to bang, one that wouldn't mind his arse being reddened with slaps and scratches of my nails while I did it. One that would beg for it, if I was lucky.

The silence was growing louder. Then I heard the scrape of his chair, but no footfalls. He was in stocking feet... I turned, suddenly sure he was coming up behind me.

He wasn't. He was standing by his chair, examining me across the distance. "I used to think you were the impulsive, dive-in-without-thinking type."

 _I used to think you were straight,_ I thought. "I like to think the war taught me a few things."

"Still the hero-type, though," he said, a hint of a smile softening his face.

I shook my head, more to deny him whatever gambit for playing me he was employing than because I disagreed. If yesterday I could have told you in all honesty that my hero days were over, today, with Draco Malfoy taking refuge in my house, I would have had trouble getting the words out. You see it was either believe that I was really acting on some good-guy instinct by bringing him there, or admit that my ulterior motive was that I wanted so very much to fuck him through the mattress.

"You've had a trying day," I suggested. "You must be tired."

He chewed that thought over. "Yes, well, I suppose I could get in bed."

"Yes," I said, as if answering him made any sense. "I'm going to finish up here."

"All right."

I had planned to leave the dishes for the morning, but turned back to them, the erection in my pants painful against the kitchen counter as I started to wash. Was it my imagination? Or was he really propositioning me? Or merely teasing me? Could he really sense my desire like he said?

When everything was in the drainer, I heard the shower running. Good. I went back up to the bedroom to change clothes quickly and grab a few things. It was Friday night, good for cruising. He was still washing himself when I left the house.

****

I returned home some time later with my cock limp but wholly unsatisfied. I felt dirty and tired. The house was quiet. I spent a long time in the shower, standing there thinking until the hot water ran out. Thinking about Malfoy, living without magic. Thinking about how not long ago, he'd stood here naked in my shower, washing away the smut another man had left on him. Thinking it was mad to even think of him erotically, but doing it anyway.

I slipped on boxers and a T-shirt to sleep in and readied the couch with a pillow and summer blanket.

And then I went upstairs to see if he had locked the door.

He hadn't. It was open about an inch. I didn't dare push it open further--it would creak. Then I realized it didn't have to. I Summoned my wand from where I'd left it downstairs, Silenced the hinges, and pushed it open wide enough to see into the room.

He was asleep on the bed, the covers tousled all around him, on his back, one hand flung out and the other palm down on his breastbone. In the dim light of the streetlamp through the wide windows I could see he wore nothing but shadows to bed.

I ached to touch him, to find out if his skin was as soft as it looked, his hair as silky. I wanted to search him like some arcane tome from the Hogwarts library, with my fingertips and eyes working together to unlock the secret of him.

Was the open door an invitation?

I fled to the couch before I could contemplate that further. I knew how easily I could convince myself that things were how I wanted them to be. But unless he had the capacity to say no, to say stop...

I was annoyingly erect as I got under the blanket, thinking, _But he did say no, he did try to stop Charles. At least somewhat._ I remembered that at the time I'd first been watching him, I'd assumed he had magic at his disposal. The thought that he was truly defenseless ... how had they met? Had their relationship always been that way?

I thought about these things, ignoring my cock until, like a cat that is hungry but bores easily, it eventually quit haranguing me. And then I slept and dreamed of tasting my own sweat on his skin.

***

I woke to the smell of coffee and the sound of rain. It spattered the wide windows that covered the front wall of the building. The rain, that is, not the coffee.

I made my way down to the kitchen to find Draco Malfoy busy there, already dressed in black trousers and a casual shirt. He had apparently roasted raw coffee beans by hand for the coffee, made an egg tortilla with vegetables and potatoes in it, and baked a loaf of bread. All without the help of magic. I was plainly astonished.

He laughed. "You've a wonderful gourmet shop two blocks over. _They_ baked the bread," he insisted, though it was clear he was pleased at my reaction. Then he shrugged. "I've learned to do a lot of things to keep myself busy without charms to do everything."

He pulled the tortilla out of the oven and we sat down to eat together. "You didn't have to..." I began.

"I wanted to," he answered, before I could finish. "Now eat, or I'll be insulted."

I ate, the demons that had argued with each other in my head during the night finally quiet. Now more practical matters sprang to mind. "There are security charms I could do for you, you know, that work for Squibs, too. I mean, that you wouldn't need a wand to operate."

He sipped his coffee, looking glum. "I... think the problem is larger than that."

I sipped my own coffee, waiting for him to say more.

"Charles pays the rent on that townhouse," he said quietly. "I don't imagine he'd appreciate being kept out of it."

I didn't want to be dragged down into another grey morass of questionable morality. "Are you going back to him, or not?"

"I... should like not."

"Then forget the townhouse," I said decisively. "Do you want anything from there? I could go back and get it for you. Otherwise, just don't. Forget it and just walk away."

He looked up at me. "Like you did? From the Wizarding world?"

I nodded. "It's not as hard as you think."

He gave a soft snort and started eating again. "It isn't that I lack the... fortitude to do it, Potter. But I've no job and nowhere to live at the moment. And I'm sure you're aware how far one gets in this country without an 'education.'"

It hadn't dawned on me before that Draco and Charles were anything but a couple. But now, something about the way he said it... "A 'kept' man, were you?"

He nodded nearly imperceptibly and said no more.

I finished my food and sat back with the mug of coffee in my hands. "I always wondered what happened to you. I never knew you were taken by the Ministry."

He took the plates to the sink.

"You don't have to..."

"I want to." He proceeded to clean the dishes and pans with an efficiency and quickness that made me think he had to be using magic somehow.

"I take it," I said, while he wiped down the counters, "that they couldn't really pin any awful crimes on you, but they knew if you went to trial it would be lose-lose for them and you."

He poured us each fresh coffee and sat back down. "Close enough," he said, looking at me curiously. "You really don't do magic? You really left it behind?"

"Really," I said. "I only got my wand out yesterday for the first time in months."

" _Why_?" he asked, his gaze sharpening as he leaned forward. "Why yesterday?"

Why indeed. "Because... I was going to see you. I didn't know if I'd need it or not."

A small smile emerged on his face. "Because you thought I might hex you on sight?"

"Not exactly, no, but there might have been some need for it, if you'd lived in a more magical environment," I answered, flummoxed a little. Seriously, why _had_ I brought it? "I still can't believe it. They made you a... Squib."

He looked like he was practiced at hiding his pain.

"What did it feel like?" I asked. "The accidental magic."

That got a reaction, a little flare in his eyes. "It was better than sex."

"Anything would be better than sex with that goon."

He deigned to smile. "I'm still suspicious of the fact that the first time I ever used accidental magic, it was while another wizard was watching."

I put my hands on the table. "You can't think I'm from MLE checking up on you or something."

He just looked at me with those piercingly grey eyes.

I hoped he felt just as pinned in place by mine. "Can you really tell how much someone wants you?"

His eyes narrowed. "Yes."

"Then... then you know I didn't come find you because the Ministry sent me." _Nor because I wanted to catch up over coffee reminiscing about old times..._ I thought to myself.

"Your logic's faulty, Potter," he said, sliding out of his chair and walking over to me. "Working for the Ministry and wanting my arse are not mutually exclusive things."

I slid my hand into one of the front pockets in his trousers, my fingers brushing his genitalia through the cloth. "You don't want to do this, Malfoy."

"Do what, seduce you? Why not?" He ran a hand into my hair and all the hairs on my body, as well as other parts of me, came to attention. His voice was low and almost vicious. "The mighty Harry Potter has come to my rescue. And now I am lonely and in need of comfort."

I was on my feet, nearly growling as I pulled him close, digging my erection into him. "I don't think you could take what I dish out, Malfoy."

"No?" he breathed into my ear. "Hardcore S-and-M, is it? Bring it on, Potter."

I pushed him away. To hear it put like that, to hear the demons that gnawed me boxed and labeled like a section of a porn store--it galled me. "This is stupid," I said. "You just survived a rape and now is not the time..."

"For you to get all Gryffindor on me," Draco said, fists clenched in rage. "What is it, I'm not good enough for you?"

It was just like being on the Quidditch pitch, anger flaring without thought of consequence or censure. "Yes, yes, that's exactly it you spoiled little bastard. You're a lazy do-me-queen who fucks upper crust closet cases for a living who wouldn't know a decent blow job from a wet paper bag."

His mouth was open in shock and then I saw genuine hurt in his eyes. "You..." He looked away, then, trying to master his emotions before saying whatever it was he was going to say. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes bright. "You didn't have to say that," he finally said in a tone that made me feel like I'd just utterly devalued him as a human being.

Which I guess I had. But while I was still trying to formulate an answer, maybe even an apology, he fled the room.

This time the door was locked.

****

The argument that ensued, given that he was behind a locked door, was in my own head and involved at least three--maybe four--different points of view. It went something like this:

_What an unbelievable little wanker he is!_

Him? What about you? You're the one who told him he was lower than shit on the rubbish scale.

Look, is the goal really to help him? Just tell him he can stay as long as he needs and sorry for the outburst, but part of you still hates his guts, right? So there's no point in...

Right?

You know, we're both intelligent, consenting adults, and Hogwarts was a long time ago. There's no reason we can't start with a blank slate...

But what an unbelievable little wanker...!

Wash, rinse, repeat.

I went out for a walk in the drizzle, I put away a lot of unshelved books in the library, I cleaned out the refrigerator. At some point I ate some lunch--that might have been what prompted me to clean out the refrigerator. Draco did not appear, though I checked and found the door still closed.

I wondered, vaguely, if he might be suicidal, and if perhaps letting him lock himself up wasn't wise. The way he'd slumped on the bed after setting it afire...? But his magic wouldn't come to life to protect him just to let him kill himself, would it? Having an overbearing rapist for a lover may have been self-destructive in some measure, but I don't think one could call it a death wish.

I thought about him lying there in that circle of flames. Maybe they would never have touched him.

I'm not sure how long I sat there on the floor of the library, two books in my lap unseen while I just thought about the half-naked body, glowing in the flames. What reaching for him and taking him would feel like, the sounds he would make... One of my feet had gone to sleep, to give you an idea how long it was.

It was getting dark outside already, thanks to the rain and overcast. I wondered whether I should get takeaway for dinner and if I should make sure he ate something. Then I was suddenly seized with the irrational fear that he had left, sneaked out during my reverie.

I bounded up the stairs to find the door ajar. I burst into the room expecting him to be gone and was brought up short.

He was kneeling on the bed. Feet tucked under him, hands on his thighs, head down. Naked. And across his knees, the heavy leather paddle I kept in the bottom drawer of my wardrobe. I swallowed. How long had he been like this? Did he have time to get into position when he heard me coming? He must have been undressed already, the paddle within easy reach...

My cock twitched in frustration at having been denied him thus far. There was no mistaking his intent this time, though. His own cock was soft on its nest of golden curls and he looked peaceful, like a statue in a church or temple.

"Draco," I said, drawn to the bed as if by a spell. He looked up at that, grey eyes meeting mine. "I have rules, you know."

Doubt flickered through his eyes.

"One of them," I went on, warming to my role, "is you don't meet my eyes unless given permission."

"We haven't started yet," he retorted, giving himself the appearance of confidence with his vehemence.

"Are you sure we haven't?" I asked, sliding onto the bed next to him. "You're naked in my bed. I'd say we're pretty far along."

The blush that spread across his cheeks as he dropped his eyes was as gorgeous as any sunrise.

"Very good," I said, and reached out to stroke his hair. For the record, yes, it was as silky as I'd always suspected. "The other rule is that if I ask you something, or ask you to do something, you always have two choices. One is to be completely honest with me, and do as I say, and the other is to walk out. No hard feelings."

"All right," he said, trembling a little under my fingertips and closing his eyes to keep from looking at me. "What if I..." he paused. "Am I allowed to ask questions?"

I didn't point out that he was asking one even now. "Yes. You're always allowed to speak unless I say specifically you can't."

"A-always?"

"Yes. Now what was the question you were going to ask?" I moved my hand from his hair to his face, caressing his cheek.

"What if I can't do something? Will you throw me out?"

I forced myself to slow down. Inflamed as all my senses were, screaming at me to throw him down, paddle him within an inch of his life and then fuck him senseless, if I didn't have the self-discipline to slow myself down, I sure as hell couldn't discipline someone else. "No," I said softly. "If you try, really try, to do as I say, even if you fail..." I stopped, realizing I was missing the concept I wanted to convey. "You walk out if you refuse. That's the only real way to fail here."

He nodded. "And, what should I call you? Isn't there a-a form of address?"

His nervousness was giving me energy. _Slow down._ "First question, have you ever done this before?"

"I..." I could see him trying to decide what "this" was.

I helped him out. "Submitted willingly. What did you call it? _Hardcore S-and-M._ "

"No," he breathed. "I've read a couple of magazines. One of my previous lovers liked to spank me but he wasn't... formal about it."

As I'd thought. "All right." I licked my lips--he couldn't see it--and Summoned my wand. I'd never had a partner I could use magic with and suddenly I could not wait any longer. "Form of address, right," I said, taking the paddle from his knees and centering myself on the bed in front of him. "You should call me... _Harry_."

His eyes flew open, then he caught himself and looked down. "All right, H-Harry."

"Very good," I said, brushing my fingertips along his cheek and watching him suffuse with color again, not sure if it was in embarrassment at having slipped or in pleasure at being praised. I'm not sure which I would have preferred--it was beautiful either way. "I'm going to push you, Draco. Everything I ask won't be easy."

He tipped his face up, his eyes closed, to answer. "Whatever you like," he said, breathless, the conviction in his voice as much to convince him as me. "I'll do anything you ask."

My grin was probably too wide, too ecstatic for the role I played, but I didn't care. "Yes, you will." I was liking this business with the eyes. I normally didn't make that rule, but was afraid I'd get caught staring into them if I let him look up.

And of course, I never let them call me Harry. But I knew it would be a test for him, to call me by my given name. Because I wasn't just some Muggle sugar daddy to him, and I wanted him to remember that. There would be no hiding behind anonymous titles tonight.

I set the paddle aside. "Keep your eyes closed, and undress me. Completely," I said.

His hands shook in the most enticing manner as he felt for the edges of my shirt. It was a T-shirt, almost too small for me I'd washed and shrunk it so many times, the cotton soft and worn thin. His fingers grasped the hem and then he slid his hands up my torso inside the shirt to push at the shoulders. I almost forgot he was undressing me, his hands felt so good on my skin. But then he backed away on his knees, inverting the shirt with his arms and pulling it off of me.

"Just set it aside," I prompted, then lay on my side, my head propped on one elbow, to see how he dealt with my jeans.

He crawled toward me then, patting one hand in front of him as he drew close, trying to find me, then laying his hand directly upon my crotch, then making a soft sound in his throat as he realized what part of me he was touching. I had a blindfold, but this was more interesting, watching him keep himself in the dark by force of will. His fingers worked at the button of the fly then, rolling me onto my back and tugging downward on my pants, too, lifting carefully over my erection and then pulling the rest down to my knees. He climbed carefully from the bed then, one hand on my shin all the while, and stripped them the rest of the way, taking off my socks at last.

Then he stood, his hands folded, naked, his eyes still closed and waited. I let the silence stretch a bit more and then got up from the bed. He heard it creak and followed me with his ears as I lit the candles in the room with my wand, one at a time. When they were all burning, I realized there were more of them than I thought. I extinguished the electric lights and then stood close to him. Not touching but close enough that he could feel my body's heat, and I his.

"I don't think I want to paw you like he did," I said, climbing back onto the bed. "But tell me, do you like to be manhandled, Draco?"

He bit his lip. "What happened between me and..."

"I know you're allowed to talk, but just answer the question."

He nodded. "It can be... exciting. In the right circumstances."

I piled up the pillows against the headboard and leaned against them. I folded my hands behind my head, enjoying the glow of the candlelight on his skin and my own interview technique. "Did you get hard in the bookstore? Did he let you come?"

"What?"

I did not raise my voice, kept it quiet but firm. "You sucked him off in the bookstore. I was there, remember? Well?"

"I... I did get hard. While I was sucking him. But it didn't last. And no." Here I was sure he blushed as he turned his head slightly to the side, though the candlelight did not allow me to see it the way the harsher light had. "I didn't come."

"He wouldn't let you?"

"He didn't tell me when to come and when not to."

"You're not using the form of address I requested."

He ducked his head. "I'm sorry, Harry."

"If it's too difficult for you, we could stop, just get takeaway..."

"No! Harry, I'm sorry. I'll try to do better."

"That's all I ask," I said, trying to make my voice a caress, though I don't know if I managed it. He didn't know me well enough yet for that. "You deserve a little pleasure for trying. Will you make yourself hard for me?"

"Yes, Harry." He circled his cock loosely with finger and thumb, pulling at the flaccid flesh, which did not remain so for long. Not at all. I'd say by his second stroke it was giving him some resistance, and by the fourth and fifth, he was loosely slipping his foreskin up and down a rather nicely-formed prick.

I let him stroke himself a few more times before I spoke again. "Put your hands behind your back."

His hand was reluctant to leave his cock, but he complied, and I crawled across the bed near where he stood.

"Good. He might not have told you when to come and when not to, but I will." I took hold of his cock then myself, and stroked him a few times, slow and light, until his body trembled and my own cock twitched in sympathy. "There are people who say bondage isn't about sex." I conjured a length of cord from my wand, smooth and beautiful and unbreakable. Fitting. I began wrapping it around the base of his cock and balls, then cats-cradled it back and forth, separating his balls and watching them purple. I sealed the bundle with a charm--God, this was so much easier with magic--and then held the remaining loose end while I considered.

I could think better with his nipple between my teeth, I decided, and suckled one hard, trapping it between my teeth and my tongue and lapping at it. The hiss he gave sounded appreciative, so I repeated the treatment with the other nipple.

When I pulled back, they were standing out proudly. I ran my thumbs over them and was pleased to see how responsive he was. Some men don't have much sensitivity there. I wondered how he would look with a ring through each one. Then I would have somewhere to loop this cord. Hmm. Piercing him was probably a bit further than I wanted to push him. But that did give me two more ideas.

I conjured a band of leather for each ankle, each one fitted with a metal ring. "Step back," I said, holding the cord. He stepped back until the cord pulled against his package and then whimpered. "Yes, stop."

I looped the cord through the ring on one side, then the other, then drew it back up to his balls and sealed it there with another charm. There were perhaps eight inches between his ankles. "Look down," I told him. He did, admiring the shiny, pink-tinged cord I'd conjured and the predicament I'd made for him when my next command was, "Follow me."

I crossed the room to the tall wardrobe and opened the doors, looking back to see his progress. He quickly determined he had to take very small steps or risk a painful tug on his balls. When he reached me, I massaged his cock in appreciation. "Good, very good."

Then I took out a belt and his eyes widened.

"It's not for what you think," I said, buckling it around his waist. I then pointed my wand at it, Transfiguring it so that it became a tight leather cincher, running from the top of his hip bones to just the exact height of his nipples. He gasped as it formed around him, then again as I tapped the buckle and it tightened, slimming his waist. His figure was too boyish for it to look truly feminine, but the dark leather was a gorgeous contrast to his skin, and the stiff top edge rubbed against his nipples each time he moved. Or breathed.

They would be sore beyond belief quite soon, and I would hardly have done a thing.

I twirled my wand in my fingers. Playing with him using magic was infinitely easier than using the implements I had stashed in the drawer. But that reminded me. "Go and get that paddle you posed so nicely with, and bring it to me."

I sat in the chair I used to put my shoes on. He made his slow way across the room to the bed, retrieved the paddle, and then made his way back.

"You're being awfully quiet," I remarked as I took the paddle from him.

"Do you want me to talk more?" He looked panicked for a second. Obedience he could do, it seemed. But improvisation?

"I understand. You're afraid to say the wrong thing." I patted my lap. "Lie across here." I guided him so that his tied cock and balls sat against mine. "Brace your hands on the chest."

He took hold of the edge of the heavy thing. I had bought it because it had been made by the company that had once been in this building, and I found it useful for keeping extra blankets and pillows in. In the winter, the high ceilings were difficult to heat and the spacious rooms were draughty, even with the carpeting I'd put in.

I rubbed his arse with the paddle experimentally, watching him tense. "A little spanking, but he wasn't formal about it, you said."

"Um, yeah. Yes, Harry."

"Well, I guess I'm more formal then. Can't just spank you for the sake of spanking you. This spanking is for going through my things."

"You could have charmed the drawer shut, you know," he pointed out reasonably.

"As I recall, it was actually locked..." He had no answer for that. "You picked this toy out for a reason. Care to tell me why?" I rubbed in slow circles, the leather cool and smooth, hissing softly as it ran over his skin.

"I guess I... thought it wouldn't hurt too much," he said, voice full of chagrin. "It looked like I could take it."

I let out an evil chuckle. That seemed so like the Draco Malfoy I'd known as a schoolboy, trying to engineer his own fate down to the last detail. "Well, you should have picked one of the floggers then. This is going to hurt, Draco. But I don't think it will be too much. I think you can take it. Remember, though, if it is, you can always walk away."

He hung his head in acquiescence more eloquent than any words.

I swapped the paddle to my left hand and spanked him once with my bare hand. He gave a yelp, to which I said, "Good. I've got no neighbors to worry about, by the way."

And with that I spanked him three times, twice on one cheek, once on the other. Then paused. Then three more, again varying where they hit. "How does that feel."

"Like you're hitting me," he said neutrally.

I laughed at that and began to spank in a steadier rhythm. Three and pause. Three and pause. Making the slaps gradually harder as his bottom reddened. Then hitting him with more force, two and pause, two and pause. He was now grunting on each strike, tensing for each blow, meaning that my hand was connecting with rock hard arsecheeks each time. My palm stung.

This is why the paddle was invented. I took it in hand finally, saying mildly, "Now that you are warmed up..." and then laying it on him, one hard smack.

That drew a gasp, and a rocking of his body as he struggled to process the pain, including the additional pain of having his balls crushed against my leg by the force of the smack. I let him reset completely and ready himself before the next one.

The sound of the paddle was loud off the brick walls, the high ceiling, but although his sob was nowhere near as loud, I heard it much more keenly. I hadn't pegged him as a crier; he didn't cry when Charles had been forcing him, after all. The third blow was followed by another sob, though, loud and clear.

Who was I to deny him the urge to cry? I began to lay the blows on fast and thick, and in no time he was bawling freely, tears flowing and uninhibited wails coming from his throat. I had never seen him cry...

No, I realized, that wasn't true. I _had_ seen him cry. I'd seen him cry so hard I barely understood at the time what he was doing. That time in Sixth Year, in Myrtle's bathroom. The time I had cut him with that hex of Snape's.

I let the paddle fall, and then slid down to the floor myself, taking him with me and cradling him in my lap. I conjured a hankie when I felt he was ready for it, and he cried a bit more quietly after that, while I stroked his hair and rocked him because really, what else could I do? It sounded like years of pain were coming out in his sobs, and they probably were.

He eventually slowed to a trickle, chest still heaving and tormenting his nipples with every breath, but silent.

"Hey," I said, turning his face to look at me. "Can you tell me what that was all about?"

I was expecting either nothing, or perhaps a convoluted tale of inner angst that it would take me time to pry out. I was not expecting his face to crumple again and for him, hoarse though he was to say quite clearly, "I feel your magic, Harry. All... all over me. Your _magic._ "

It was a good thing he hid his face in my neck then, because I teared up and nearly lost it at that point. They might as well have taken his soul. "It's all right," I said, to myself as much as to him. I Summoned my wand just for the sake of feeling it in my palm then. I'd lived without this for how long? Why?

"Do you need to rest a bit?" I asked him. "Or would you like a reviving charm?"

His head snapped up. "Oh, God, please yes, Harry."

I laughed. When was the last time one of those pathetic wannabe slaveboys made me laugh so much? "If you weren't already strainingly hard, this would do it, you know." I cast the charm and he shivered deliciously in my arms. I checked his balls and cock with my hand--he could go a little longer without me worrying about damaging him. Then I recalled I could heal him if I had to, as well.

"Make me come, Draco."

He jerked upright again. "Um, how?"

Hm. Good with obedience, not so good with improvising. "Quickly," I answered. "Oh, don't worry. This isn't the end. I want to insure that I take my time plundering your arse. Because I know you won't be satisfied, and neither will I, until I do."

"True enough," he whispered, remembering to drop his eyes and then putting a hand tentatively on my balls. "Could we move to the bed?"

I nodded. "You go first." It was another opportunity to watch him walk ridiculously, his reddened arsecheeks flexing with each tiny step, like a geisha or something, framed by the black edge of the cincher I'd created for him. It took me but a moment to catch up to him and then to climb ahead of him onto the bed. I watched as he contemplated how to get onto the bed without separating his legs more than eight inches. He was more deft than I would have been, sitting on the edge, scooting back using his hands, and then swinging both legs to the side.

He rolled onto his stomach then and came to me without further ado. That he was an absolute artiste at sucking cock did not surprise me one bit. Every part of his mouth and throat, tongue, cheek, palate, you name it, came into play to give me one of the most intense orgasms from a blow job I have ever had.

"Very good," I said, when I could speak again, which was longer than one might think.

He wiped his lips with a satisfied air. "And to think, that was without any teasing or anything."

"I might have to keep you around," I replied. "Now up."

I guided him to the wardrobe. From the drawer he'd found the paddle in, I pulled a shiny, chrome buttplug and a bottle of lube. "Hands behind your back."

He crossed them, the right holding the left in cupped fingers. I bound them with a charm, then ran the loose end of the cord up to the ceiling and stuck it there, shortening it until he was bent near double. I encouraged him to spread his legs until there was a nice bit of tension pulling his package as well.

"And now," I said, lubing up one finger and knowing it to be one of the cruelest commands I could give: "Relax." I swiped his arsehole with it and knew that relaxing was far from any possibility for him right now. I inserted my finger then, slowly, and felt him strain against the intrusion. "Relax," I repeated. "It's just my finger. Though in a moment, I'm going to swap to the plug, which is much less forgiving."

He whimpered, but did not protest.

"You're beautiful like this you know," I found myself saying as I probed inside him. "I guess I had to leave the Wizarding world to learn that."

I pulled my finger free then, and swapped the plug into place, just nosing the tapered tip into him. "It's metal," I said, as if he hadn't noticed. "It'll feel cold, until your body warms it. And it's got no give. _You_ have to do all the... yielding."

I worked it slowly back and forth, fucking him with it, each time letting it go just a hair further inside him, opening him and stretching him bit by bit. His breathing was soon ragged and needy. "This isn't even a very big one, you know," I told him. "That's not the point. The point is to get you stretched and ready for me, so that when I want to take you, I won't have to wait."

The words spilled out of him. "God, Harry, soon, please?" I think we were both surprised by them.

I chuckled. "You just made me come, did you forget that? I won't be ready for another go for a half hour at least." With that I slid the plug completely into place and stepped back. He moaned, utterly trapped by the position and yet precarious at the same time. I cast two silent charms, one to cushion his fall should he give out, and one to release the cords if he did. He sighed, just feeling the spells in the air without knowing what they were.

"I'll be back as soon as I'm hard enough to fuck you," I said, giving him a kiss on the cheek and then leaving the room.

***

 

I went to the library and lay down on the couch. Then I pulled out my wand, Transfigured the couch into a magnificent four-poster bed with curtains and satin bedcovers, and lay down again looking at my wand.

My same old wand, holly, eleven inches, phoenix feather. The wand that removed Voldemort from the world.

The world I'd removed myself from and which Draco had been forcibly exiled from. But at least I still had my magic.

My magic. Which had made him cry with longing and grief.

Well, to be sure, Draco did still have his own magic, too, just locked inside him. If it was still there, there had to be a way of releasing it. They did it with a spell, he had said. Not a potion. The application of magical will. Well, perhaps there was a spell to undo it. Perhaps my will...

Submissives must always wonder what dominants are doing when they leave them tied up and alone. Honestly, I'd never done it before. I'd been taught by men I respected that one never, ever left a submissive in bondage. It's too dangerous. You could tie them up and make them _think_ you'd left the room. But you never actually left them unattended.

But they were Muggles, with Muggle partners. If anything happened to Draco, I'd know.

No doubt he was wondering what I was doing with myself. Well, I kept him in the dark, and I shall keep you in the dark, too. I went up to the roof. And that is as much as I will say.

When I returned to him, I'd had plenty of time to recharge my batteries and re-set my mind. It was time for something a little different.

He looked like he'd closed the distance between his feet an inch or so, but otherwise he had not moved. Not that he could have, bound, corseted, and positioned as he was. Clever Slytherin, though, I thought. I had not explicitly said he could not move his feet, and for just that reason. He knew therefore that he could relieve the pressure on his balls just a little without incurring punishment. I admired his surety.

"Do your arms hurt?" I asked.

"Um, no..." he answered.

"They will when I let you down. But other parts of you need releasing first." I waved my wand and the buckle on the cincher came undone, and then the plain dusky black belt fell to the carpet. I stood in front of him, as erect as I promised I'd be when I returned, and fed my cock into his mouth with my hand. His head and neck were angled badly, for him, for this, but another top shelf blow job was not my goal. I just wanted to reach around him to brush my fingers lightly across those sore, sore nipples, and proximity of his mouth to my cock was too enticing to forgo.

He cried out, or would have, at my soft touch, but he was gagged by my cock. His cry was muffled by my flesh and I almost preferred to take his mouth this way than letting him have his expert way. I suppose both methods had their advantages.

He was so sore, I didn't have to pinch or twist. They were raw, and just the lightest touch was agonizing to him. I tortured his nipples that way for a bit longer, thoroughly enjoying his uninhibited expressions of pain. They were pure and real and shared freely with me. But I had other things in store for him.

I released his cock and balls next, pulling my own cock free and then Vanishing the cord in an instant. He gasped and nearly came, I think, then staggered a half step, putting pressure on his arms. I Vanished those cords as well, and I was there to catch him and let him down to the ground, even as he wailed in pain as his shoulders came forward. "There, there," I said, stroking his hair. "You did very well. I'm very pleased."

I could almost feel the effects of my words on him were like a warming charm. I would have thought his sugar daddies would have been full of praise for him, but I guess not. Maybe they were too full of themselves. Maybe they just wanted a pretty thing to hang on their arm, they didn't have to tell it so.

I almost just took him right there on the carpet, almost abandoned my mission until another night. I could draw it out a little longer, what would be the harm? But I steeled my resolve to stick to the plan.

I levitated him then, onto the bed, placing him face down. I used charms to bind him spread-eagled, and then returned to the drawer for a ball-gag and a blindfold. They matched as a set, made from the same black leather, the same tiny buckles. I took great care in buckling them on, so as not to catch stray hairs in them, and they looked striking against the blondness.

I began to toy with the buttplug. "I know I told you you could speak if you wanted to, and that if anything was too much for you, you could always walk away," I said. "But, well, that was before I gagged you and bound you to the bed. I'm guessing that you think it's going to be easy for you from here on out."

He held still at that, but could not help but press his hips back into the motion of the plug. "You probably think I've trussed you up like this so that I can use your hole for my own pleasure."

He nodded at that. "You'd like that wouldn't you? You can't do a thing, can't participate in any way other than opening your body to my penetration." I heard a needy whimper around the gag. "Such a hungry slut. That's why they sent me to do this job, you know."

I felt the tension go through him as he registered that last sentence as Not Quite Right. "You didn't really think it could just be a coincidence that the moment your magic started to break free, a wizard showed up? Especially your old nemesis? I've been watching you for months, 'Drayton Tonks.' Yeah, that charm that blocks your magic isn't permanent. Not as permanent as we'd like anyway."

I felt the sweat breaking out on him as I talked. "They had some low-level schmuck tailing you for a while, but as your behavior and choice of partners grew more and more questionable, they called for me. Putting yourself in jeopardy the way you have--that's your subconscious trying to create a situation in which your magic can release. I'm sorry you finally did. I was quite enjoying watching you sodomized by that maniac on a regular basis. The wine bottle... wow." I twisted the buttplug as I said this and he actually managed an outraged scream around the gag.

"It's my job to re-do the charm that'll bottle your magic up again. Do you remember the charm they used? I bet they didn't let you hear it out loud. Well, the incantation is _Copulata_ , from the Latin _copulae_ or bindings. Or bondage, you might say. Also the word that 'copulate' comes from. So as you know, the charm can just be done with a wave of a wand. But I find it more poetic, more fitting, to copulate with you in bondage while I put your soul in chains."

He was trying to repeat two words over and over. I could only guess that they were either "fuck you" or "you're sick." His face was purple with rage.

"I’m going to fuck you now, Draco Malfoy," I said, pulling the plug free and laying my body atop his. "I've waited so very long for this."

And his scream as I sank myself into him? I felt it vibrate through my chest. I was sorry it had to be this way, after all the build-up. And God, even after the plug had been in there for an hour, he was still tight. He clenched even harder in his anger, I think, and as I fucked him I knew I would not last long, despite the previous orgasm.

I slid my hand under him to grasp his cock. "I see Charles was right. You are hard as a rock. You must really love this, secretly. I want to make you come. I want to make you come so you'll always think of me fucking you when you come." I pumped it hard, in the short strokes I could manage against the bedclothes. "There's no one to save you this time, Draco Malfoy," I went on. I hoped it wouldn't take much longer, as my stamina was questionable and if I came too early, all my hard work would be for naught. "You're mine for as long as I want you. Helpless as a Squib while I take you again and again..."

I was nearly blinded by the fire when it came this time. But my wand was there in my hand. " _Copulata!_ " I shouted, drawing the flame into a whirlwind and then driving it straight through him, my wand tip touching his spine.

The room went dark as even the candles were extinguished. " _Lumos!_ " And then I was tearing the blindfold and gag off him, though I didn't let his limbs go just yet. "Draco?" I held my glowing wand to his face.

He was smiling. "You..." was all he managed to say. But it was clear that it was dawning on him just what I'd done.

"The best fuck is a mindfuck," I whispered into his ear.

He clenched tight around me--my cock was still buried in his arse. " _Copula_... meaning binding, meaning bondage..."

"To bind your magic back to you," I said.

"How long have you known this?"

"About a half an hour," I admitted. "I did some research when I left you trussed up."

"Where? How?"

"Sorry, I have to have some secrets. And you've let drop the form of address."

He gasped as I thrust hard as I said that.

"I'm sorry, Harry!" He pressed back against me as best he could in the bindings.

I released them then, with a flick of my wand, pulling him back onto bent knees, his cock hard and full bobbing beneath him.

"May I touch...?"

"Yourself?"

"No, no, Harry." He laughed. "Your wand. May I touch your wand?"

I slid forward until my hand met his, and he took it in his palm. And then, with a flourish he relit all the candles in the room. "There. Now... now we can finish properly."

"Hmm, well," I said. "I must punish you for forgetting your place there for a bit, and forgetting to use my name. In fact, I'm fairly sure you were calling me some very nasty things with the gag on." And with that, I landed a stinging slap on his arse.

"Oh, God, Harry..."

"Yes, you definitely need more correction, Draco Malfoy." And I spanked him good and hard, alternating hands, as I fucked him slowly, trying to make it last.

In vain. I gave up shortly thereafter and reached around to pull on his cock as I approached orgasm myself. I felt him spurt over my fingers just moments before reaching that peak, and then pounded into him as hard as I could, wringing every ounce of orgasmic power out of both of us.

And then, as most sex ends--whether any bondage or magical cataclysms are involved or not--we fell into a sweaty heap.

I manage to shift so we ended up on our sides, spooned. "So...." I said cautiously. "Does that mean you forgive me?"

"For which thing?" Draco asked, pulling my arm around his chest like a blanket.

I laughed. "Fair enough."

"Seriously, Harry, you have to be more specific."

"All right." I kissed his back and nosed in the hair at the back of his neck. "Do you forgive me for casting _Sectumsempra_ on you in Sixth year?"

He went rigid in my arms for a moment, then snorted. "You do realize, I'm so giddy with post-coital bliss and the insane rush of having my magic returned that I'll agree to nearly anything."

"Good. Then say you'll stay."

"Do I look like I'm in any shape to go anywhere?"

"No, I mean... not just the night. Stay with me. Forever."

"Okay, now who's giddy with post-coital bliss..."

"Just say 'yes, Harry.' Please, Draco. It'll make me happy to hear you say it."

"Well, I do enjoy doing that."

"What, making me happy?"

"Yeah. _Yes, Harry._ Did it work? Are you happy now?"

"Yes. Yes I am."

He picked up my wand, extinguished all the candles with a single word, and I think we were asleep before the light had actually left the room.

****

I woke on Sunday morning feeling sore and fatigued and hungry, and for a few moments I could not remember why. I sat up in bed, blinking and reflexively reaching for my glasses. Then I remembered having laser eye surgery at a Muggle clinic. I could hear water running.

Then I remembered Draco. I Summoned my wand and surveyed the room. My belt lay on the floor where we had left it. The buttplug was nowhere in sight. I got off the bed carefully lest I step on it.

It sounded like he had just gotten into the shower. Despite last night's exertions, I had a strong case of morning wood.

I stepped into the bathroom, then into the shower with him. I kissed him good morning in the spray without saying a word, then slid a finger into his arsehole. He pressed back hungrily against it, moaning but still not saying anything. I slicked myself with conditioner and took him there against the tiled wall of the shower, neither of us speaking, as if it were an absolute given that we'd simply fuck at any opportunity. That he would offer and I would take. That I would enter and he would not refuse. We washed each other after that, hair and bodies and private parts, him pressing reverential kisses on my now quiescent cock, me pressing equally reverential kisses against his forehead.

We finally spoke while drying off. He spoke first. "You want me to make coffee again? And how about ham and cheese omelettes?"

"You don't have to..."

"I want to," he said with a smirk.

"All right. I won't stop you," I said, smirking back.

After we'd eaten, I cleaned the dishes with a charm, and then Summoned the newspaper from the front stoop. But I didn't open it. I put it down on the table and then sat, while Draco nursed a second mug of coffee.

"You're using magic again," he pointed out.

"I am," I agreed. "But I'm not going back. To the Wizarding World. I'm staying here."

He nodded. "What you said last night..."

"I want you to stay. With me." I didn't add the word 'forever,' which only sounds believable in love songs and immediately after great sex, but which is implied. "I realize you don't have to..."

"Harry," he said with a touch of exasperation. "Just because I have my magic back, doesn't mean I can do anything with it. I haven't got a wand, and I can't set foot in Diagon Alley. I'd be nabbed before I got ten steps."

"So would I," I said. "We'll order one. By mail. Anonymously. One owl delivery to the bookstore won't incriminate us. I... still have some Galleons."

He nodded. We both seemed quite somber given that it seemed we had just decided to live together as wizards in exile. Or maybe we were both just tired.

"What are you thinking?" I asked him, opening the paper but not yet reading it.

He looked into the dark depths of his coffee. "I'm thinking it really was Fate. It really was the magic inherent in the world that pulled us together. When you were rocking me, when I was crying... you know what I thought?"

I forgot the paper entirely. "What?"

"This is why I was so shocked when you asked if I forgave you for _Sectumsempra._ " He set down the cup and looked into my eyes. "Because as I lay there in your arms, bawling my eyes out, I thought... this was what was supposed to happen in Sixth Year. You were supposed to find me crying in that bathroom... and be my savior. You'd have brought me to Dumbledore, he'd have guaranteed my safety... and all these things would have happened and we would have ended up right here, together. Only at the time I was thinking, except I wouldn't have paid the price of losing my magic. That was the price for trying to use that Unforgivable on you that day instead of asking for help. But Fate has brought us together anyway...."

I smiled. "And in the end, you didn't pay that price. Because Fate did bring you to me." Though which one of us saved the other, I couldn't have said. I wondered vaguely if this was an outcome that Dumbledore would have wanted.

I stood and held out my hand. "Let's get back in bed."

"Yes, Harry," he answered.

The rest you can figure out for yourselves.

-end-

**Author's Note:**

> Full end notes can be found on my LJ, here: http://ravenna-c-tan.livejournal.com/68015.html
> 
> The fest prompt I was given had a lot of BDSM elements in it, including "scening in a public place, such as a fetish club, and enjoying the attention," which is a scenario one doesn't often see in fanfic. Well, to be honest, one rarely sees BDSM-themed fanfic that is what I call "scene aware." You see plenty of actual bondage, captivity, torture, et cetera, which is all well and good, and you even find fetish fic in which the two lovers use bondage or spanking or something else kinky. But you rarely see fic that acknowledges that there is an organized, long-standing subculture of BDSM players out there in the Muggle world (Calanthe's Glovepuppet and related stories are a very notable & recommended exception!)
> 
> I think "the BDSM scene" rarely appears in HP fanfic for a few reasons. One: part of the fun of writing fantasy where there can be actual captivity and torture is that one doesn't need the niceties of "safe, sane, consensual" (a popular credo in BDSM subculture). Two: most folks are not a part of that subculture themselves, so they may be shy to try to write in a milieu they don't know. Three: it's a Muggle thing.
> 
> Anyway, the BDSM scene isn't unusual to me. I'm a longtime BDSM player & activist in that community. So I tried to picture Harry leading slave!draco into a club. When I was done wiping up my drool, however, I realized that what I didn't want to write was a fictionalized scene report, which would be boring. I don't like PWP much--and whenever I read one I always end up with questions like, but how? why? what then? I realized that to write the story of them visiting a fetish club at some point in the future, I had to write the story of how they got together in the first place.
> 
> So, I thought, let's start in a postwar scenario, with Harry already somewhat in the Muggle world? I wrote nearly the entire thing then, over the course of two days. And my concept for magic, love, and power to be all different aspects of the same thing ripened nicely.
> 
> I'm gratified by the many people who commented they don't usually like BDSM fics, but that they like this one! I think, ultimately, it may be the difference between scene-aware BDSM fics and ones where the bondage and sadomasochism are part of real captivity scenarios. Or maybe just that for me, a scene-aware BDSM fic has to be based on love, not cruelty. An oversimplification, but a useful one: real life BDSM is based on love, abuse is based on cruelty.
> 
> I was a little surprised one comment someone made about them being sad that Draco felt he had no choice but to go through with something kinky he didn't like because he was afraid of being thrown out. Hmm. There's three things wrong with that sentence. 1) Draco liked it, and likes kinky things when he consents to them, 2) he wasn't afraid of being "thrown out," and 3) he had very clear choices and understood them. I tried to make clear the subtle but important difference between Harry forcing or coercing Draco to do something and Harry empowering Draco to decide for himself.
> 
> Some people might ask why Harry employs this method of "safeword" with a newbie like Draco. Harry is testing Draco's commitment and his trust in Harry, as well as Draco's ability to give up control. If he allowed Draco to set the limits and to, say, warn him with words like "red" for too much, "yellow" for close to too much, and "green" for okay, he'd be handing Draco control of the scene. The whole point is to find out if Draco can actually let Harry control things, if he trusts Harry enough to let Harry have his way without needing an escape hatch. Harry reminds him that he is in control in one crucial way. Draco has the power to stop the scene completely at any time. He can walk out of the room. But he has to accept that if he does, the scene is over and won't resume if he changes his mind again. It's also Harry's way of showing this is serious to him. He's not doing it for a lark, or just to get his rocks off meaninglessly. He is making a kind of commitment, too, where he won't back down from his promises either.
> 
> As it turns out, the thought of leaving never crosses Draco's mind at all. He finds everything Harry does to him enjoyable and wonderful, if physically and mentally challenging, right up to the point of the mindfuck. Then for a while he's completely enraged, terrified, et cetera... but when he finds out it was all Harry's way of taking care of him and helping him, he loves it. That and the sheer euphoria of having his magic returned... is it any wonder they're in love by morning?


End file.
